How Addis Ababa is set to get hotter, wetter, drier, and bigger
A new study shows how climate change will lead to more heatwaves and severe flooding in Ethiopia’s capital, one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities.
Addis Ababa will likely face increased heatwaves, droughts and severe flooding over the next 67 years. These changes will pose risks to public health and infrastructure. They’ll also be felt most acutely by the Ethiopian capital’s most vulnerable residents: those living in informal settlements.
Addis Ababa is one of the fastest-growing cities in Africa, and its current metropolitan population of about 5.4 million is projected to reach close to 9 million by 2035.
Continue reading on African Arguments.
Deadly humid heatwaves to spread rapidly as climate warms – study
Small rise in global temperatures would affect hundreds of millions of people and could cause a sharp rise in deaths
Life-threatening periods of high heat and humidity will spread rapidly across the world with only a small increase in global temperatures, a study has found, which could cause a sharp acceleration in the number of deaths resulting from the climate crisis.
The extremes, which can be fatal to healthy people within six hours, could affect hundreds of millions of people unused to such conditions. As a result, heat deaths could rise quickly unless serious efforts to prepare populations were undertaken urgently, the researcher said.
Alaska firefighters experiment with targeting blazes to save carbon
The Bureau of Land Management pilot program represents a shift designed to help curb climate change
Firefighters are embarking on an ambitious experiment to stamp out blazes deep in the Alaskan wilderness as a way to avert carbon emissions in what experts say is a seismic shift in thinking in modern wildfire management that has traditionally focused only on fires that threaten human life, property or commercial interests.
Read more on The Washington Post.
Putting the emphasis on the local level to address climate change
Jobs Neck, Martha’s Vineyard, MA
With effects of climate change becoming more apparent in recent years, an ever-growing body of research has emerged to quantify, understand, model and predict the risks associated with the phenomenon.
But within that field, said Woodwell Climate Research Center climate risk director Christopher Schwalm, the focus has always been on global climatic trends.
Continue reading on The Vineyard Gazette.
As climate warming drives more extreme weather, ‘everything we care about is on the line’
The extreme weather this year has been relentless. Currently, a heat dome over the southeastern United States is sending temperatures well above 100°F, more than 1,000 fires are actively burning across Canada, and some 100,000 people in Pakistan have been evacuated after a river overflowed and sent up to six feet of water across roadways.
Meanwhile, hurricane season is just ramping up, ocean temperatures are at record highs, and parts of Greenland’s ice sheet are melting at a record pace.
This is life on planet Earth that is roughly 2°F warmer than preindustrial times. Even for climate scientists who have long warned this was coming, the onslaught of crises has been nothing short of shocking.
Read more on The Boston Globe.
Is Earth’s largest heat transfer really shutting down?
With unprecedented heat waves and record-breaking global temperatures, it’s hard to believe that there might be a place on earth that has actually COOLED since the industrial revolution. But, it turns out, there is such a spot. The COLD BLOB off of Greenland mystified scientists for years, but new studies have uncovered a scary reality – this cool patch might be a warning of the impending collapse of a vital earth circulation system. And the consequences would be dire. In this episode of Weathered, we travel to the Gulf Stream with the new PBS Terra show Sharks Unknown to experience the AMOC first hand. And we ask, what is the likelihood that the AMOC will collapse, and what would the consequences be?
How a mix of natural and human-caused factors cooked up Tropical Storm Hilary’s soggy mess
A natural El Nino, human-caused climate change, a stubborn heat dome over the nation’s midsection and other factors cooked up Tropical Storm Hilary’s record-breaking slosh into California and Nevada, scientists figure.
Cooked up is the key phrase, since hot water and hot air were crucial in rapidly growing Hilary and then steering the storm on an unusual path that dumped 10 months of rain in a single weekend in normally bone-dry places. Nearly a foot of rain fell in parts of Southern California’s mountains, while cities smashed summertime records.
Read more on Associated Press News.
Climate adaptation – A conversation with Woodwell Climate Research Center
Wellington Director of Climate Research Chris Goolgasian and Dr. Zach Zobel of Woodwell Climate Research Center join podcast host Thomas Mucha to share their perspectives on the adaptation research and investing landscape.
